O, What a Luxury: Verses Lyrical, Vulgar, Pathetic & Profound - Softcover

Garrison Keillor lives in St. Paul, Minnesota, home of A Prairie Home Companion, his radio show that has been on the air since 1974. He is the author of many books including the Lake Wobegon novels, and he edits the Good Poems anthologies. He is a contributor to the New Yorker, Atlantic Monthly, and Salon.com. In 2006, he wrote the screenplay for the film A Prairie Home Companion, directed by Robert Altman.

WHY I LIVE IN MINNESOTA

Where the temp gets down to thirty below
And it’s perfectly flat, miles of snow,
And you ask why I live in this desolate spot.
Because you do not.

You in loud clothes
With very big hair
And very big pickups
And not much upstairs,
Who whoop in church
And handle snakes
To prove their faith
For goodness sakes.
They slur their speech
Down in the South
As if they had cotton balls
Stuffed in their mouth.
The men hunt gators
Out in the marsh,
While the women stay home
And hang up the warsh
And tend to the babies,
And fix gator stew.
Now what if these people
Lived next door to you?
And the only thing
That keeps them away
Is the fact it will hit
Minus thirty today?

Winter's a challenge
But it can be faced
When you're among people
With brains and good taste.
BILLY THE KID

Billy the Kid
Didn’t do half of what they said he did
He rustled cattle, I guess that’s true,
But nobody knew who they belonged to.
He killed some men, maybe two or three,
But he was always real nice to me.

Billy the Kid went on the run
Down to Mesilla in 1881.
Sheriff Pat Garrett put on the heat
And came to the ranch of Billy’s friend Pete
But it wasn’t Billy who was shot by Pat,
It was someone wearing his pants and hat,
Billy the Kid was miles away
In Santa Fe with flowers in his hair
And I know cause I was there.

He made a fortune in fermented juices
And built a mansion in Las Cruces,
Changed his name to William Bonney
Wrote Way Down Upon The Swanee”
And he may have been guilty to a degree
But he was always real good to me
And generous to my family.
Always sent us a Christmas turkey
From Albuquerque
And a box of chocolate candy
From down on the Rio Grande.
They called him a killer and I guess he could be
But he was always good to me.